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Recent Submissions
- ItemA Word of Welcome from the Editor-in-Chief(2016) Morenets, VolodymyrIntroductory article of Kyiv-Mohyla Humanities Journal (2016) No. 3 by the editor in chief.
- ItemDancing with Knives American Cold War Ideology in the Dances of West Side Story(2016) Belgrad, Daniel; Zhu, YingIn cultural studies today, there is emerging an interpretive revolution “from below” — that is, a radical reassessment of the politics of cultural forms, based on a recovery of the embodied and affective subject as the center of meaning-making. Making sense of dance performances is therefore methodologically important because of their particular ability to offer insight into these two aspects of subjectivity. As an artifact of Cold War American culture, Jerome Robbins’ choreography in the film West Side Story (1961) enforces an ideological distinction between legitimate and illegitimate forms of violence, through its portrayals of “cool” affect as a necessary disposition, and organized violence as a necessary evil. Our close analysis of the dances “Rumble” and “Cool” offers new insights into the affective “map” that provided the ideological foundation for American political theorists and policy makers in formulating their Cold War attitudes.
- ItemIdeology and Religion(2016) Hovorun, CyrilThe article explores the genesis and varieties of the phenomenon of ideology, and its relationship with religion. It begins with the origins of the notion and term in Antoine Destutt de Tracy and Karl Marx, and then continues up to the most recent developments of conservative and liberal ideological schemata. The author pays particular attention to the totalitarian ideologies of Communism and Nazism. The article argues that ideology sometimes tried to replace religion, and sometimes mimicked it. In any case, it exercised a profound impact on churches. This impact is in most cases polarizing for the church, when the latter identifies itself with ideology and thus dramatically reduces itself. Among the instances of such an impact are “political Orthodoxy” in Ukraine, and the “Russian world” in Russia. The author concludes that the church should learn to distinguish what is ideological and what is theological.
- ItemSoviet Ideology in Workers' Memoirs of the 1920s-1930s (a Case Study of John Scott's and Borys Weide's Memoirs)(2016) Klymenko, OksanaIdeology was the basis of Bolshevik policy and was used as a means of control over society. Key Bolshevik ideological postulates were created and disseminated in the 1920s‑1930s. The goal of this study is to analyze the influence of Soviet ideology on workers of the 1920s‑1930s in the memoirs of John Scott and Borys Weide, who participated in the building of Magnitogorsk and DniproHES, respectively. Based on the memoirs, the article investigates the dissemination of ideology and describes its main tasks in the 1920s‑1930s, such as “the building of socialism,” and the glorification and formation of the “new Soviet man.” These two constructs have several components, which are considered in the article. For example, glorification of “the building of socialism” was achieved through demonstrating Soviet “achievements” in industry, “superiority” to “capitalist countries” of the West, etc. To form the “new man,” images of “self” and “other” were created and an anti-religious campaign was conducted. The study focuses on the writing style of workers’ texts, as the memoirs were written in a formalized “Bolshevik” language through which their authors demonstrated their loyalty to the state. Also studied are changes in workers’ attitudes to the state despite ideological influence.
- ItemA Trial in Absentia Purifying National Historical Narratives in Russia(2016) Bertelsen, OlgaThis study explores contemporary Russian memory politics, and analyzes the ideological underpinnings of the 2011 Moscow court verdict that criminalized a Ukrainian scholarly publication, accusing it of inciting ethnic, racial, national, social, and religious hatred. This accusation is examined in the context of Russia’s attempts to control the official historical narrative. Special attention is paid to the role of Russian cultural and democratic civic institutions, such as the Moscow library of Ukrainian literature and Memorial, in the microhistory of this publication. Deconstructing the judicial reaction of Russian lawmakers toward the Ukrainian publication, the study analyzes the Russian political elite’s attitudes toward the “Ukrainian” historical interpretations of Stalin’s terror and other aspects of common Soviet history, and demonstrates the interconnectedness of the preceding Soviet and modern Russian methods of control over education, history, and culture. Language and legislation play an important role in Russian memory politics that shape the popular historical imagination and camouflage the authoritarian methods of governing in Russia. The case of the Ukrainian publication is contextualized by examining the cult of chekism and the discursive significance of anti-Ukrainianism, salient elements in Russian memory politics that have transcended national borders.